| Subject: Something to forward to anyone you know who has children in public school... |
Author:
Beth
|
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
Date Posted: 07:40:42 06/23/06 Fri
Author Host/IP: NoHost/198.209.77.233
This is a guy I have never liked. His tone bothers me...this article let me know that others feel the same down! Beth
The Case Against John Stossel
Monday, June 5, 2006
By Marty Solomon
For half a decade, John Stossel has been making lots of money by, what many people believe, fabricating stories, stringing together half-truths and simply making up his own set of "facts" in order to pander to people in America who have a burning passion and an agenda to destroy American public schools. Stossel and his band of brothers, seem to treat truth as collateral damage in a war against public schools. If one snippet might point to a failure in public schools, Stossel heralds it like a new war in Iran . But if information might undermine his myth of the universal superiority of private schools, he ignores it.
Stossel uses the oldest trick in the books of taking a single example and then generalize for all of America . To "prove" that public schools are ineffective, he stated that in one school, " teachers are so dull, students fall asleep in class." Out of 86,000 schools? In another statement, he claimed that in one of the best schools in America , "one teacher didn't have control over the kids." Oooooh, my goodness.
And Stossel purposely interviews only people who are disgruntled with public schools or who promote their breakup. He quotes Jay Greene. who some call the ultimate public school basher and who some say has make a lucrative career out of degrading public schools.
In an ABC 20/20 Special earlier this year entitled, "Stupid in America ," he derided the public schools as being inferior, inefficient and inept. He touted a major finding that showed that public school students scored lower than private school students in 4 th and 8 th grades. What is instructive is that, before his show aired, Stossel apparently was sent a paper by Professors at the University of Illinois , demonstrating that when controlling for socio-economic status, their study showed that mathematics achievement in public schools actually appeared higher than in private schools.
In spite of that information, Stossel ignored that evidence and stated, unequivocally, that private schools do a better job.
But this is not the first for Stossel. In November 1999, Stossel aired another public school-bashing 20/20 Special in which, many who watched believed that he twisted, bent and even broke the truth.
For example, he tried to convince viewers that our teachers are inept because in one state a large percentage of teachers flunked a proficiency test. But that was not true. It turned out that these were prospective teachers and those who flunked were not hired. This is just characteristic of the half-truths in Stossel's armory.
In 1999, Stossel said that SAT scores are lower than they used to be. And when students from 21 countries took the same math and science tests, America 's public school students came in last in general math, and near last in every other category. But how misleading. SAT scores in 1998 were higher than anytime in the previous 23 years. And on international comparisons, the facts were totally different from Stossel's incredible proclamations. In the 1995 international TIMMS test, US 4 th -graders scored 7 th out of 17 countries in math and third in 4 th -grade science. ABC should be ashamed of the misinformation that is strewn on its airways.
In his 2006 TV Special, Stossel went on to decry public school spending. He complained that Catholic schools only spend $3,000 per student and educate well, while public schools spend many times that. But this again is a huge obfuscation because neither Stossel nor anybody outside the Church knows how much Catholic schools spend per student. While some Catholic schools charge $3,000 for tuition, this has no relationship to how much additional money the Church subsidizes education. And the fact that Catholic school enrollment has dropped from 5.2 million students in 1960 to about 2.4 million today, is support for the theory that the subsidy cost is quite high.
Again, Stossel uses the old-time trick of a single example to generalize about the universe. He claimed to have administered one test to one high school class in Belgium and one high school class in New Jersey . Guess what? The Belgians outscored the New Jersey kids. Stossel then goes on to imply that it proves that American schools are inferior. He even gets one Belgian kid, whom Stossel claims is a student, to say that American students are stupid. Do you think that there is a remote possibility that such a remark was planted? Or paid for? When Stossel was asked what was the Belgian school and who were the "students" in the TV show, he was unwilling to reveal the answers.
In another segment, Stossel interviews a handful of parents who tell him that, essentially, public schools are useless, irrelevant and a waste of time. And that is supposed to prove the inferiority of American public Schools. In another unbelievable segment, he interviewed a woman who claimed that when her granddaughter came to visit, the little girl was essentially illiterate. But in two weeks, the woman had transformed this poor child into a fully-functioning scholar. How can Stossel dare to air such an outlandish and obviously over-the-top claim? Is it because it fits his agenda?
Stossel continues to tell his audiences that school vouchers are the solution to American educational problems. Yet there has never been a substantial study, out of dozens, that has demonstrated truly significant improved results for private schools versus public schools in general when controlling for demographics. Does he ignore the evidence purposely, or is he simply totally devoid of information and simply full of sound and fury? He even ignores the lack of success of the largest private school experiment in American history, the Edison Schools which have failed to prove truly significant superiority over regular public schools. In fact, Edison compares unfavorably in many cases.
Stossel makes the statement that in most other countries students take the government's money and go to the school of their choice. When he was challenged and asked for the source of such a statement, he refused to answer. Does that tell you something about Stossel?
He finished the painful and torturous hour of, "Stupid in America ," with this vacuous statement: "The government's school monopoly has promised reform after reform but repeatedly failed. Now should we give them more money? Give me a break! Let's try something different."
Repeatedly failed? Does Stossel live under a rock? Let's look at the facts. Public school scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress test (NAEP) for all ethnic groups were at all-time highs in 2005. SAT scores in 2005 were at a 31-year high. The proportion of students scoring above 650 (the 92nd percentile) on the SAT mathematics had risen to a record level. And the number of students taking Advanced Placement Tests went from 78,000 in 1978 to over 1,000,000 today. And on 2003 international tests, US students scored above the international average in math and science.
If this is failure, then let's celebrate failure. Give ME a break! Stossel spreads misinformation, half-truths and even false "facts." But nobody seems willing to hold him accountable and he is unwilling to even discuss this ugly state of affairs.
EPILOGUE
As an epilogue here, I want people to know that I have tried for months to contact John Stossel, his producer, other ABC News officials and the ABC News President to verify various statistics, "facts" and pronouncements that Stossel made in his 20/20 Special. After several emails, two faxes, ten phone calls and a snail-mail letter to the ABC President, I have never been able to get a human being to respond. ABC is clearly hiding behind its shameful program of misinformation and obvious untruths. ABC appears to have an impenetrable fortress built up to disallow answers to important questions and to keep it from having to defend what it airs. ABC should be ashamed.
-------------------------------------------------------
Marty Solomon is a retired University of Kentucky Professor
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
| |
Feedback: 